EIP-8357 proposes an on-chain registry of fork-approved EVM verification keys
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readA new Ethereum Improvement Proposal, EIP-8357 "EVM Verification Key Registry", was merged into the EIPs repository as a Draft on 14 October 2026. Authored by Luca Donno and created on 30 July, it is a Core standards-track proposal aimed at native rollups — rollups that reuse Ethereum's own execution environment and its upgrade process rather than maintaining their own verifier.
The gap it fills. The draft builds on EIP-8288, which verifies proofs against verification key hashes supplied by the caller. What EIP-8288 does not provide, according to the motivation section, is a way for a contract to learn which hashes L1 recognises, which one is current, and which input schema each proving program expects — the schema being needed to reconstruct the program's public output. If those values were hard-coded, every rollup would have to pass its own governance vote at each L1 feature fork, or stay on an older EVM by default.
What the registry is. EIP-8357 specifies a system contract at a fixed address (0x00005e9c1447c1a05a642ec9eb76d9c125468357 in the draft) that holds, for each registered L1 feature fork, the canonical EVM verification key hash and the schema_id of the stateless input that fork's EVM program accepts. The contract stores one current_verification_key_hash; a caller can ask for the current entry or for an exact historical one. The all-zero hash is reserved for "give me the current entry" and may not be registered. The key hash is the 32-byte field EIP-8288 defines for its STARK-based scheme.
What a rollup gains. The abstract states the two choices it enables: a native rollup can follow L1 EVM upgrades automatically, by always reading the current entry, or deliberately remain on a historical EVM fork, by pinning an exact hash. Either way the decision becomes a property of the rollup's contract rather than a recurring governance event.
Where it stands. The proposal lists a long chain of dependencies — EIPs 161, 1014, 1559, 7910, 7928, 7997, 8025, 8037 and 8288 among them — and the draft does not tie it to a named network upgrade. Draft status means the text can still change substantially; discussion is open on Ethereum Magicians.
Source: EIPs repository, EIP-8357 "EVM Verification Key Registry" (added 14 October 2026) — https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/commit/3adac4e2ae4cda00f5f6401f891f5faaff4abe53